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Author notes:
Most serious negative feedback I've gotten from non-anime fan readers:
1) the women are too needy, some readers are not understanding why someone would find them desirable emotionally
2) not enough moments where they are actually creating or making music.
3) I over-control the story, nothing left to the imagination -- "too much explanation"

I view these issues as filters to use in re-editing.
1: it was a mistake, imo, not to show how dangerous Tsika can be via the small town bar fight. My rewrite for a book addresses that. I'm looking through the first volume, things like having the women balk at taking up Blar's offer, deciding if they even need him at all. Glycerin is very needy at story beginning, I want her that way, she's broken. Part of the story is about whether Glycerin heals or crashes. Kpau is pretty independent other than her night terrors which fade. Some lines of dialog change would address that. Tsika portrays herself as assertive and confident, her neediness leaks out at the idea of being left alone and friendless. More tuning needed. That kind of stuff is fixable without destroying the connections with anime tropes.

2: I agree there isn't enough actual music making, I thought the average reader would find the process boring and it doesn't advance the storyline. However, if that's what people want - I can certainly add that, like by expanding the creative process during the band's retreat. Stage moments are exercises in expressive description - I like a challenge of not repeating myself.

3: one reader keeps saying I over-control the story. Frankly, I have no idea how to respond to this one -- so I'm asking her for specific examples at this point. I'm really scratching my head on that critique. If the reader is seeing the action from a character's point-of-view, they have to know what the character knows. Not quite sure how NOT to do that. Describing the scene is something I like to do -- in my mind it creates more reality (kind of like Tolkien would tell what kind of trees were around them, how the weather was, who was wearing what).

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Here's a segment of the bar fight, rewritten so that we get to see a glimmer of Tsika in action. In my original draft, she froze and did nothing. I like this version much better. It still has some issues but is closer to what I want:

Glycerin began taking small bites of her meal, then suddenly made a face and stood up.

“Bollocks … I have to go to the 'loo now. I drank too much before the f-food came. Be right b-back.” Glycerin put her hat on the table and trotted off towards the restroom hallway. Tsika choked her bite down and started to get up but Kpau patted the pale Russian's arm.

“We'll just eagle eye. I know you can cross a room like a hummingbird.” Kpau could hear Blar sighing and pushing his chair back as a precaution.

A sudden noise from the pool table area took their attention. Two players had apparently disagreed over a bet and were negotiating the difference with their fists. Kpau found them comedic and was rolling her eyes at the spectacle. They had terrible form and were probably too drunk to see each other. Most of the room was finding the fight entertaining.

“Well, Blar Bob, I wonder if that doesn't do it what it takes before the mysterious Tim appears.”

Tsika heard the sound first and jerked up to her feet, knocking her chair over. A little soft cry. Kpau snapped out of her glaze of watching the pool table fight. Glycerin was on one knee with one of the two idiots from earlier pulling her by the arm.

“Come on, china doll! We can go find some fun with you!”

“I don't thinks so. You're being a bl-bloody arse! Let go!”

Kpau leaped to her feet. Tsika was already moving in the corner of Kpau's field of view when they were both blown aside by Blar. The fury on his face surprised the hell out of the blonde. Tsika seemed caught by surprise in the wave of anger in his wake.

Blar was intercepted by the second idiot who swung a cue stick at him. There was a crack as the stick broke on their bandmate's large shoulder but that just seemed to piss him off. Kpau noticed two more participants incoming.

“Two more, Tee! Left and right!” Kpau cut left, tripping the idiot holding the cue stick as he reared back to take another swing at Blar. That thug went down on one knee. Blar punched him in the nose and grabbed the other end of the cue stick. They wrestled for it. The man who had Glycerin in his grip stopped to watch, obviously to see if he was going to be interrupted from his fun. Glycerin was simply trying to pull away and not succeeding.

While Kpau was engaging one of the additional thugs, Tsika sprinted straight at Glycerin and her captor. The third goon stepped into her line of flight to intercept the little twin-tail. He had a stupid grin on his face. Kpau almost had time for a smirk. Doom on him.

Kpau grabbed a chair to fend off her dance partner. He was so drunk he could barely stand. She felt like she had a second or two of leisure to analyze the big picture. Blar seemed to have Mr. Cue Stick in hand beating the snot out of him. Blar had lots of power but he wasn't very poetic. Mostly Kpau wanted to watch Tsika. She had only seen the little vampire in a fight once before and that had been awesome.

The results were worth Kpau's delay in her eyes. The fool wasn't much smaller than Blar and his grin projected the notion he had an easy tasty treat to catch. Tsika went low, ducking below his first grab. She flashed a heel out, driving his knee in a direction not intended by nature. The man screamed and swung a haymaker at her but she was already well inside his swing. Tsika twirled and drove her fingers simultaneously into his solar plexus and up under his jaw. The goon's grin vanished as the pain set in. She instantly followed that by grabbing his shirt and jerking the bottom of his chin into the hardest part of her head. The doofus bit his tongue as teeth shattered. Both hands went to his mouth and Tsika hamstrung her adversary with a down-slice of her sharp heel. He dropped to all fours cursing.

Kpau could see Tsika wasn't wasting any more time with him. Her expression said she wanted to kill the man touching her Glycerin and this piece of trash was slowing her down. Kpau gasped as she caught a flash of dagger in Tsika's hand and then was distracted by the fool on the other end of her chair. Not quite as drunk as she thought. Kpau dodged a grabbing hand as she twirled and launched the chair into the man's face sending him flat on his back. Blar was trying to avoid being stabbed with the broken cue stick as he gripped the wrists of his attacker so Kpau turned with the intention of kidney punching the bastard.

Then a hair-raising alien growl from Glycerin drew everyone's attention and brought Tsika to a screeching halt from her sprint.

Glycerin was still on one knee looking at the floor and breathing hard. The man started pulling her back with him but was suddenly jerked towards the long limbed beauty. Glycerin stood up, grabbed him by the shoulders and smashed his face with her forehead. The impact probably broke the man's nose, blood streamed down his face. There was another higher pitched growl, this time with words.

“Leave! Her! Alone!”

The voice was piping but fierce and loud. Glycerin kicked her attacker square in the groin, a long swinging kick that lifted him off the ground. He was down and out in a crumpled moaning heap.

Blar used the distraction to grab his cue stick attacker by the collar, twisting that one's arm behind him with a nasty wrenching noise. Blar followed that quickly by slamming the man's head into a support pillar about a half dozen times by Kpau's count. He threw that one on top of the other man.

Tsika had been grabbed by the man she had put down first. He had her by the wrist of the dagger-wielding hand. Kpau lunged in that direction, almost as much to save the man as to help Tsika. The guy seemed to be realizing that Tsika intended to maim or kill him. Fear was filling his face whereas Tsika's expression was cold and murderous.

Blar was still focused on Glycerin. He took the opportunity to pull Glycerin out of harm's way and was nearly rewarded with a flying fist from the young woman. Her eyes locked on his just before the swing would have landed.

At that point, what Kpau assumed was the legendary Tim entered the fray. Kpau wasn't sure she had ever seen someone so large move so fast. He dwarfed Blar. Tim snatched the man Tsika was about to disembowel away from her and hurled the fool across the room into a pillar.. He went down without a peep. Then Tim picked up the attackers, two at a time, and dragged them to a closet near the front door, hurled them in and locked the door behind the four broken brawlers.

“Got 'em caged, Ma! You two over there at the pool table! You still wanna fight?” The two men that had been originally fighting over a bet shook their heads and sat down quickly.

Tim gave Tsika a smirk as the small fury was vanishing her dagger. “Quite happy you didn't get to use that stinger, little bit. We really would have some explaining to do then. Ma always said watch out for the tiny ones.”

Tsika quietly nodded, still breathing hard from the fight. She began heading towards Glycerin with a frightened expression as she saw Blar cradling her friend.

Tim made his way over to Blar as well, gave him the once over and then Glycerin. “Is the little darling okay? The hospital isn't too far.”

“I think she just needs to call it a night, Tim. Thanks. I was afraid they'd have more friends.” Blar shifted Glycerin in his arms and checked her face. Her eyelids were half open but she nodded and put her arms around his neck. Tsika took a protective position next to Blar, glaring at any patron who twitched in the room.

“Nah. They got no friends. They're jackasses that mess with people every weekend but it never gets bad enough. I think it got bad for them this time. Usually I just have to say boo and they're gone. Nice move by the cute filly, but she seems to have some spectacular backup.” Tim glanced over at Tsika.

Kpau sauntered over with a huge smile and extra wiggle in her hips. “O Mighty Tim! Can we get those tasty plates of food to go? Probably best if we vanished in the night, ya think?”

“Whoo, doggy! Ma said there was a cute little blonde out here! Shiiit. Yup. We'll get you bagged up and gone. We gotta call the police but we'll dally a bit. Be gone before Frank and Joe get here, they'll jaw ya all night taking statements. These dipshits got a rap sheet already so they'll just take our word about the jackasses scaring off good paying tourists.”

edit: Fun with writing, post an example and a dozen errors leap out at me, so it goes. edit2: a little better. Blar doesn't notice the dagger during the fight and Kpau helps Tsika keep her potentially lethal escalation a secret.
edit3: I see a huge pile of varying grammar tense issues. More edits needed.

Sadly, couldn't come up with tiger-stripe undies for Kpau so went wiith black silk. So it goes. The band gets frisky (in the vein of Red Hot Chili Peppers) in the latest chapter onstage -- Kpau's solution for a Glycerin dilemma.

New chapter ... I don't *know* if this story path will stay that way but my original notion just seemed to be getting way too dark for what is supposed to be a rom-com with survivable drama. For the rough draft that this thread is, we'll call this canon. I suspect a couple of readers will be caught off guard

New chapter ... I don't *know* if this story path will stay that way but my original notion just seemed to be getting way too dark for what is supposed to be a rom-com with survivable drama. For the rough draft that this thread is, we'll call this canon. I suspect a couple of readers will be caught off guard

In other news, I'm starting to put together the kind of social media connections that "modern indie authors" need to market and promote their books. At some point here, it'll be obvious what my real name is and what I look like. So it goes

Modern authors use Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and other mediums to project and market their works. They publish in e-books initially and may or may not produce paperbacks or hardbacks. So I'm also forcefeeding myself the technologies of e-publishing (tools, formats, etc) and figuring out how to integrate it so I don't spend all my time derping in social media and no time writing.

In the meantime, carrying on with volume three and taking a scalpel to volume one.

Been working on 0.98 edit pass of Volume One so, next chapter of volume 3 will be later in the week.

Kpau seems to be the most popular character with female test readers -- I could probably waste a page doing psycho-analysis of that. Glycerin is most popular with the anime/manga crowd (male or female). Tsika comes in last place with every demographic. Sashiko slips in with some votes, probably because I did a better job with balancing her since she's a bit of Tsika-lite.

Can't decide if I just did too well at making Tsika unlikeable (since there needs to be a reason she has so few friends) or what. My editor and I have decided we should put more scenes in the first volume showing Tsika and Glyc interacting to add more emphasis to Tsika's positive sides.

Anyway, attacking my 0.98 version of volume 1 with all the notes in hand. This is actually fun since it's been a while since I read it and it seems easier to spot the Awkward, the Needs More and the Needs Less.

In the meantime, have a bouncy Kpau video to distract you - shiny, glitter, skin, and now in chainmail.
(I think it is kind of amusing her chastity lock isn't locked)

Curious as to what Kpau's victory margin with women is. If it's large, I have to say I'm surprised: first, I would have expected a fairly balanced field. And second, because Kpau doesn't get quite as much attention as some of the other characters.

Tsika I can actually see rubbing a lot of people the way. Yes, plenty of anime get away with abrasive female leads, but aside from fans being used to it, most anime play it for laughs early on - Taiga and Haruhi both start off as bordering on being gag characters IMO. And both maintain some fairly sizeable hatedoms regardless (especially Taiga).

Glyc's victory among anime fans - did you really expect any other result?

Curious as to what Kpau's victory margin with women is. If it's large, I have to say I'm surprised: first, I would have expected a fairly balanced field. And second, because Kpau doesn't get quite as much attention as some of the other characters.

The explanations run along the lines of Kpau being a fairly centered, gung ho (yes, I said that on purpose), somewhat independent, confident character. Even when she makes a decision to be dependent on some matter, she's thought it out. As we move from v1 to v3, she even grows out of the night terrors (which had largely remained due to her unwillingness to even talk about the night of the crash with anyone). That's what I've pieced together anyway. I don't have a large sample group but basically it went about 50% Kpau, 40% Glyc, 10% Sashiko, and nada for Tsika.

Quote:

Tsika I can actually see rubbing a lot of people the way. Yes, plenty of anime get away with abrasive female leads, but aside from fans being used to it, most anime play it for laughs early on - Taiga and Haruhi both start off as bordering on being gag characters IMO. And both maintain some fairly sizeable hatedoms regardless (especially Taiga).

Tsika (obviously) is supposed to be a twisted play on the tsundere. She has actual psychotic tendencies but she's been sublimating them with her co-dependency of taking care of Glycerin. I had hoped that her throwing herself under the bus for Glycerin over a decade would make her more likeable but ... yeah, didn't happen (hence looking over the early part of the story with that in mind).

Quote:

Glyc's victory among anime fans - did you really expect any other result?

Chapter the next is about half done ... but won't be ready til the weekend. Here's "white Glyc" and a longer haired Sashiko in one or more vids. will update this post as needed.
You also get an idea of the tentacle stage I guess as well as an active somewhat stoned Glyc.
Audio is a bit scratchy o.O

The band in a couple of possible realities for the Kyoto performances -- it was really hot the first night (malfunctioning a/c) so the band is randomly stripped down.
Aina is represented in one ... some lip-sync issues in some of the videos (take it off, spaceman)Next chapter will likely be on Tuesday.

This is the last video with Sashiko's in-between hairstyle. It represents her managing to perform on a large stage without hurling her guts (until afterward) with prodding and a bit of cheating from Aina.

I don't think Aina will ever mention the undercover use of certain airborne intoxicants to win her bet.

I won't lie. At first I was going to be all ambiguous and "camera moves off to fireworks in the distance" but then I realized there was a lot of tragic comedy latent in the Tsika and Blar thread and I took the brakes off.

Translation: this chapter is very NSFW, but a fairly comedic NSFW (comedic in the human foible way).

Also, mixing comedy and dark drama is just something I like to do -- people can be funny even when they can't escape impending doom. Humor is spitting in the face of doom after all.

In retrospect, the chapter reads a little disconcertingly (Glycerin's thread in between the human comedy). I'm still working on how I want to present this. I'm seeking "dark comedy" -- where scary things may be happening but there's still people being the flawed hilarious creatures they are. I suspect the final published version of this will look far different.

Speaking of the final version - still whacking away at volume 1 while getting derailed by the needs of self-marketing (and working on volume 3). Mayhaps I have too many task threads.

One of the last performance moments in Kyoto. Kpau gets to be shiny and Glycerin demonstrates some quirkier dance moves. Next chapter likely to be Wednesday of next week unless I have a brilliant streak.

Not having a brilliant streak (actually I spent the weekend editing volume 1, hopefully last pass this week before I put it to bed for publication).

Here's a performance by Aina and some of the Lost Girls, will probably putter out a couple of more videos to highlight Sashiko's new hairstyle, Glycerin's "white look", and some of Tsika and Kpau's less seen stagewear.